Garry Winogrand Quotes

Stanley Kubrick knew we had good graphics around MIT and came to my lab to find out how to do it. We had some really good stuff. I was very impressed with Kubrick; he knew all the graphics work I had ever heard of, and probably more.

Acting on a blue screen is awful.

It was close to like a 67- or 70-day shoot for 'Tron' on stage, in the suit. You can't even sit down during the day because of all the cables that divide the foam rubber and all the electrical circuits. We had these stools that were tall with a bicycle seat on them and you're just looking at a blue screen all day.

Every movie presents unusual challenges, and I like solving the problems with a combination of artwork and engineering.

To do a train wreck and make it look real on screen is tremendously skilful.

I'm not a great fan of green screen. It's not much fun for actors. It's great for directors and technical people and cameramen.

Something like 'Alien,' that was not so easy. If there's any genre I wouldn't mind not having to do anymore, it would be science fiction. It's just all to do with the toys, and there's so much hanging around.

There are shots that I had to walk away from because we had to get the movie in the theaters. There are some in "Independence Day" and "Godzilla," but lately I got smart. I would plan it so I had enough time [to get it right]. That just comes with experience.

To be fair, it's not even the first time I've seen a dead version of myself. There was one on Harry Potter, on the last movie, that they actually used to bring to set in a body bag.

In the first earthquake scene [ in "2012"], there was only a limo and a plane. That was it. There was nothing else there, so everything had to be created in the computer, and that's always very difficult.

Many people are under the delusion that I'm just a special-effects man, but I've worn many different hats in my day. On every film I've been involved in, I worked with the writer and producer. We really formulated those scripts. We tried to make films that were logical but still had the fantasy feel of it. I enjoy Aardman Animation's films with Wallace and Gromit, but they're obvious puppet films, whereas we tried to disguise it and make our effects characters in the films rather than obvious puppets.

Yes, because it's Len's obsession with practical. I've never really had that experience that I hear people having of being on an empty soundstage painted green talking to a tennis ball on a stick.

But in the former, those movie sets that you've been on like that, even if they're huge movies and most of its being spent in special effects afterwards, I think that's the way that we're going.

With a live performance, you feel nervous because there's a sense it could do well or badly based on how well you are performing, whereas the only variable with a film premiere is technical, which invariably you have very little control over, whether the sound is good, whether the acoustics of the room are good.

It's remarkable to see the advancements since the early days of [Harry] Potter with putting LEDs on everything, pointing sticks and measuring. Just archaic stuff. Now, it's like one guy with a laptop.

We go for our own reality. I remember some of our guys saying it is way harder to make stylized art directed explosions of jade rather than a regular explosion of shrapnel.

The scene [in The Hangover] where the tiger actually pops up behind us, that's actually a Jim Henson tiger puppet. The Jim Henson Company actually supplied that tiger. And it's really cool. Its entire face moves. It has like all these little motors in its eyebrows and cheeks and mouth. It was amazing.

You can't see any movie nowadays really without it having some sort of CGI treatment, albeit whether it's a creature or an environment, something like that. To make a point, sort of poetically in that case, but clearly it was a drama and how do you approach it? Well, I think what you're supposed to do is what the text dictates. What you bring to it and everything you need to know should be there, and pay attention to your director.

I helped develop Disney's) special effects department at that time, which helped very much when we worked on "20000 Leagues under the Sea"

I read about some movie where they did everything on blue screen, and the actors were not even connecting to each other.

3D is not a fire and forget tool. It takes a lot of very careful consideration and it will change your approach to where you put the camera so 3D isn't for everybody.

Working with green screen, you really rely on the director in a way that you don't on different types of films.

[I was filmed] against a blue screen [in the Star Wars]. All the rest came later, in Lucasland. They did have me take gun lessons, though. I went to the same guys who taught Robert De Niro for Taxi Driver.

Working with a green screen is so different than working with another human.

My favorite films are when all of the technicalities are so seamless and so well done that I'm not thinking about them - you're able to go full-on into the story versus talking about edgy this moment was.